The military engineer who built the Soviet atomic project
Beginning construction of the Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant in 1942 with little more than a stake driven into the Peršinskaya field, he delivered the first pour of steel barely a year later.
A Soviet military engineer and state administrator who built the Moscow Canal, Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant, Moscow State University, and the atomic project's key facilities including Chelyabinsk-40 (Mayak). As chief of Glavpromstroy (NKVD/MVD industrial construction camp administration), he personally sited Combine No. 817, the plutonium complex, and brought it to operation in under three years, enabling the 1949 atomic test. Later Deputy Minister of Medium Machine Building and then Deputy Minister of Defense for Construction and Quartering (1963–1973), he modernized military construction and in 1972 became the first military engineer promoted to General of the Army. Hero of Socialist Labor (1949), Stalin Prize (1951), Lenin Prize (1968).
Career Timeline
- 1928–1931Engineer, Svir'stroy Design Bureau
- 1931–1937Moscow Canal: sector chief → chief of Central District
- 1937–1938Chief & chief engineer, Moscow Canal operations
- 1939–1940Deputy People's Commissar for Construction
- 1941–1942Commander, 5th Sapper Army
- 1942–1944Chief, Chelyabmetallurgstroy NKVD
- 1944–1951Chief, Glavpromstroy NKVD/MVD
- 1955–1963Deputy Minister of Medium Machine Building (construction)
- 1963–1973Deputy Minister of Defense for Construction & Quartering
Related historical events
- 1928–1937The Five-Year Plans and the Soviet TransformationMoscow Canal construction engineer
- 1941–1945The Great Patriotic Warcommander of the 5th Engineer Army
- 1943–1949The Soviet Atomic ProjectBuilding the sitesHe led the military construction organization that built the atomic sites and the closed cities.